CHAPTER XL 

 PLANTING, PRUNING AND TRAINING. 



Except in places where rock, clear sand or clay may make it de- 

 sirable to open a considerable excavation to remove bad stuff or to 

 mix better material with it, it is seldom necessary to dig large holes 

 for planting anything. Small plants, set with trowel or dibble, or 

 larger plants, set by throwing out a few spadefuls of earth will do 

 quite as well as if placed in large excavations if the soil is good <as 

 described in Chapter III and well prepared to meet the requirements 

 outlined in Chapter IV. The purposes of those chapters is to make 

 the whole soil-mass of the garden good and then new plantings will 

 not require rifle-pits which are always expensive and often danger- 

 ous because they favor the formation of subterranean mud-puddles, 

 which very few plants like to grow in, and will keep out of if they can. 

 And an established plant is much better able to keep its roots out of 

 the mud than a newly-set plant is to gain establishment in it. In a 

 deep, well-drained soil or in a shallow soil, if hole-drainage is pro- 

 vided, one can sometimes get a greater development of plant in a 

 given time by digging cellars and filling them with plant food and the 

 policy thereof may be commended to gardeners who have hurry-up 

 employers, or to park planters who have restless city-fathers to serve, 

 but both these problems are professional and therefore out of our line. 

 To the amateur such procedure is generally a temptation to put his 

 faith in a hole and to neglect other important things which should be 

 done after planting. 



Firmness in Planting. The conditions emphasized as desirable in 

 preceding chapters in the planting of seeds and cuttings, and in 

 transplanting seedlings, are applicable to the planting out of older 

 rooted plants of all kinds. Firming the lower soil into close contact 

 with the roots, and leaving the upper soil loose for exposure to the 

 air are essential to success. Both are concerned directly with the 

 maintenance of moisture in the soil, which the plant is first to use in 

 its re-establishment, and with the proper, but not excessive entrance 

 of air for root-activities. The amateur is apt to be too gentle in his 

 planting. It is not well to -act as though you were disposing downy 

 coverlets upon the limbs of a sleeping babe; it is better to press heavily 

 with your foot upon the soil next to the roots as though you were 

 trying to stamp the life out of the brat. If the spot has been properly 

 prepared for planting, it is deeply loose and the pressure is necessary 

 to restore firmness at the root-place, the balance of the earth may be 

 left to re-assume a proper condition at its leisure which it will 

 surely do by natural processes. 



